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Nerval's Lobster writes "Hewlett-Packard is the latest PC manufacturer to jump into the Chromebook game, whipping the curtain back from a 14-inch device loaded with Google's Chrome OS. Powered by a dual-core Intel Celeron processor, and touting roughly 4.25 hours of battery life, the HP Pavilion Chromebook follows in the footsteps of other Chromebooks released by Acer and Samsung over the past few months. While these manufacturers continue to produce devices loaded with Windows, the growth of Chrome OS could spark some worry among Microsoft executives, who have become used to their hardware partners operating as Windows-only shops. But is Chrome OS a true threat to Windows, or just a way for manufacturers to gain some additional leverage in negotiating with Microsoft over licensing fees and other matters?"

For the reasons stated in the summary, from the manufacturer's standpoint it just doesn't matter. The effort to port ChromeOS, measured in engineer hours, could easily be paid for by a 50 cent drop in the per laptop licensing fee for Windows. It's a good gamble. It's a win either way.

Personally though, a Nexus 10, with all those pretty pixels, and a bluetooth keyboard seems to fill this niche better than anything I've seen with a hinge.

MS aren't doing themselves any favours. If Windows 8, Windows Mobile, Surface and the planned changes to Small Business Server are anything to go by, it appears their new hobby is committing economic suicide. That's a pretty big threat to Windows and I know a lot of Windows server administrators who are starting to get nervous.

I agree with you say, and that is why I try to learn as much as I can about every peice of technology I come into contact with. That way I am not tied into a single thing that could eventually die off some day. Nothing lasts forever everyone knows that, and that is why I think knowing just Windows, Linux, or Mac OSX is a bad idea. You are putting all your eggs in one basket so to speak.

I do exactly the same thing - I work on a helpdesk that supports both Windows and Mac. I'm also teaching myself Linux on the side, although where on earth do you start figuring out basic Linux desktop support in an environment so fractured and chaotic?! Loving CLI servers though;)

Focus on Ubuntu and/or Red Hat for a start. Those 2 distros alone, along with their derivatives with minimal differences, should account for the vast majority of cases you would ever deal with. Really, if you only focus on Ubuntu, you'll get the biggest slice of the Linux pie along with, by far, the highest portion of users that might actually need helpdesk support.

I dunno...if doing this professionally, I'd say concentrate more on RHEL. From my experience, that is the predominate (if not only) version of

Windows 8 also doesn't have anywhere else to go but up. It's first quarters numbers will always be inflated by people chasing the latest and greatest at any cost, large enterprises stockpiling licenses early. Also, while it's profit isn't exactly weak, it's certainly not as dominant as it was was 2010 Q1 and previously, especially compared to other tech companies - the eponymous Apple being on of them - that seem to be capitalising nicely on Microsoft's slow erosion. Whether it can be halted is another matter but based on recent sales figures, it's not looking good for Microsoft ever returning to it's former glory days.

MS will always be around, they are too big to just disappear, but in what capacity, health and excellence they are around depends on how they deal with this portable tech iPad/iPhone/Android phenomenon.

Everyone wanted windows 7 and it is amazing IMO and the true successor to XP but I just don't.... want... anything they're making right now. Give me Win 7, Server 2008R2, Office 2008 and my Android devices and leave me alone for about 5 years and then come around again and see if we need anything ok?

Don't worry, the licensing will change and cause cross-product incompatibilities so you have to upgrade. They're fairly genius about engineering their upgrade and licensing treadmill into their software.

Microsoft has lost the consumers, but it has not (yet) lost business. The people that think their tablets are intended for consumers are dead wrong. If consumers buy them great, but comparing iPad to Surface is an apples to oranges comparison.

No one is currently putting line of business apps on mobiles, neither iOS nor Android. They're designed for consumer utility and entertainment not LOBs. Microsoft is betting big that they can fill the vacuum and thus fortify their position with their biggest/best c

Not to mention Windows 8 got a lousy 2.25% marketshare and that was with MSFT selling Win 8 Pro at just $40! Now that they have raised the price of Windows 8 to $110 for Home and $200 for Pro? Yeah I don't see those numbers climbing much after this.

I can tell you that as a retailer this is the first MSFT OS since WinME I'm actively not carrying, I've got nothing but bad feedback from those that tried the Win 8 units in the shop. From what I've seen if there is a Win 7 unit and a Win 8 unit side by side the

Just go DIY, then you can have it YOUR way and run whatever you want. From the specs you listed it sounds like you want this kit [tigerdirect.com] which is an i5 with 12GB of RAM, although personally I'd say the best bang for the buck is this AMD kit [tigerdirect.com] which gives you 6 cores and 8GB of RAM for less than $250.

I've built a couple of the 1045T based kits and they are pretty nice, I'd change out the stock cooler for a Hyper 212 or N520 though as they drop the temps pretty significantly over the stock coolers.

My issue with MS is licensing and the time it wastes, as well as version support. For instance, on a Windows 7 machine I use, which is licensed, a dialog keeps popping up telling me my software my not be genuine. Why do I want to waste my time with this. I buy a computer to be productive, not fulfill someones else marketing scheme.

So far Google has not been so bad in focusing on end users. It's development of current product, like Docs, has been disappointing but these are still useful in a limited ba

Introducing the new Microsoft LiveBook. Boots right in to Microsoft's cloud-based OS. Skydrive, Skype, Office365, Bing search, Hotmail. Coming your way in 2015 or sooner.

The problem is that this cannibalizes Windows to an extent that I don't Redmond is prepared to accept. They could just simply offer a cheapish tablet with features like this without it necessarily being a direct threat to Windows.

It seems that Chromebooks are trying to slide into the market slot that Netbooks are currently vacating. I'm not entirely sure I understand what's going on there, netbooks were well refined products that seem to have gone out of favour and everyone is designing Chromebooks from scratch. Considering these are effectively the new dumb terminals, you'd have thought they could've done better than a Celeron and 4.25 hours of battery life - netbooks were rather more capable than Chromebooks appears to be, cost about the same and had far superior battery life.

Or has everyone (finally) just realised that 10" is really not that comfortable a form factor?

Chromebooks are going to be a big hit in education. I work in schools and am testing a Samsung right now. The battery life on it is rated at 6 hours, which will get you through a school day with no charging. Add to that, many school districts are taking advantage of Google's free Apps for education domains, which gives you the same version of Google Apps that businesses are paying for.

For as low as $250 on some models you get a device that does 95% of what students need to do with it, lasts all day without charging, has a screen big enough to satisfy most kids and has a full keyboard.

Chromebooks are going to be a big hit in education. I work in schools and am testing a Samsung right now. The battery life on it is rated at 6 hours, which will get you through a school day with no charging. Add to that, many school districts are taking advantage of Google's free Apps for education domains, which gives you the same version of Google Apps that businesses are paying for.

For as low as $250 on some models you get a device that does 95% of what students need to do with it, lasts all day without charging, has a screen big enough to satisfy most kids and has a full keyboard.

What's not to like?

The other 5% is the killer.

That pitch sounds good to people who don't understand that computers are tools. To paraphrase the sentiment with a different tool: "instead of buying a screwdriver with interchangeable heads why not spend 2/3 as much on one that can only be used on the most common size of screw?"

The answer is of coarse: "I need something that works on more than one type of screw. Just because that type is a minority of the screws I work with does not mean I can ignore it, and buying two screwdrive

Yeah, 6 hours is all day for school. When I was in school that's how much time I spent in school and doing homework. I'm not sure what's so confusing to you about that. When you figure the computer is turned off during lunch and breaks that's about what you get. Even an 8 hour a day job is really only 7 hours or so when you factor in breaktime.

These aren't dumb terminals. The web sucks with dumb terminals. Turn off plugins and javascript, THAT would make it far more like a dumb terminal, though not completely.

Chromebooks are just a halfassed attempt to make you think its a dumb terminal. Your Chromebook still has to run the browser, display graphics, render OpenGL, process sound and apply effects and tons of other stuff.

A TV with a keyboard attached to the network sending key strokes to the server who then updates the display

I'm not entirely sure I understand what's going on there, netbooks were well refined products that seem to have gone out of favour and everyone is designing Chromebooks from scratch.

The storyline that I've heard is that Microsoft killed the Netbook with their licensing requirements for Windows. To qualify for cheap copies of Windows, the hardware had to stay shitty. 2 gigs of ram, slow and small hard drives, weak CPU's and GPU's.

So, for the consumer, why would you want to pay $300 for a laptop with 3 ye

you'd have thought they could've done better than a Celeron and 4.25 hours of battery life

Look at the newest Samsung one, then: ARM processor and 6-8 hours battery life. I have one and it's a great little piece of equipment.... and the 10" form factor was terrible. Screen too small for keeping at arm's length, and don't even get me started on the reduced-size keyboards.

I can dig that point of view. I saw those covers you can get for tablets with the Bluetooth keyboard built in and immediately liked the idea. If a Chromebook can manage a fast enough start-up time it could compete against tablets in the convenience stakes for a certain type of user with low requirements. However, they'll need to do something pretty special if they're looking to break any significant market share away from the current established players (I'm looking primarily at Windows, good luck luring in

14" isn't too bad actually, around 13-15 inches is a nice sweet spot for the keyboard if you're trying to build for people with big hands. To be honest, the best way to improve laptop usability would be to ditch that shiny coating for matt non-reflective screens instead.

Yeah, I love my Thinkpad and I don't see myself getting over it any time soon;)

Chrome OS is a threat in that it enables users to easily make use of Google's applications. As far as operating systems go, Windows 8 is the biggest threat to MS (in the sense that it is probably causing a lot of users to steer away from MS). But as a platform for using Google's services, MS definitely will have to worry seeing as how many of Google's applications (e.g. Google Docs) eat into Microsoft's profits.

For casual use, content consumption, sure. It fills the same niche as those netbooks of a few years ago, and tablets (for the most part) now. But for content creation, they need apps that are currently only ported to Winders and OSX. So, will Chrome OS be a threat to Winders? Don't ask me, ask the developers. I couldn't possibly care less what OS the device is running. I'm only concerned about what I can do with it.

But you're right, depending on the *kind* of development, there are inexpensive tools out there to do that. I do photography, and I basically need the Adobe suite. (Don't say Gimp. Just don't. Yes, I have used it, and it's better than nothing. My workflow doesn't fit with its assumptions.) At the moment, my solution on a slate or a non-Windows (non-Apple) laptop, is to remote into a Windows box or Mac running my tools, whic

I'm not really sure where ChromeOS is supposed to fit in. For people who want to do heavyweight stuff, it's no substitute for a full-fledged OS, and people who just want a content consumption device have mostly already switched to smartphones and tablets running iOS or Android. I sort of see where it fits into Google's marketing strategy – it's an OS for people to live their entire life "in the cloud" – but is there any actual demand for that? One thing we should have learned from the WinRT and WinPhone fiascos is that just because a company thinks a product is strategically important doesn't mean that its customers are going to agree.

I personally would like ChromeOS to come touchscreen with a little android compatibility thrown in:)

I can't for the life of me figure out how you'd mix a keyboard and a touch screen and have that make sense.

Ergonomically, it would suck to have to reach up to your monitor from typing... it would look like hitting the carriage return on an old typewriter or something.:-P

On my desk, my monitor is about a foot or more behind my keyboard, I'd need to lean forward to even touch it.

Either I'm suffering from a large lack of imagination, or all of these people clamoring for a keyboard and a touch screen haven't thought this through. It seems more like you'd get a bad compromise of both.

People just want something that works and requires little to no maintenance to maintain stability. That's why Android phones and tablets have been very successful globally. On the other hand, just performed a clean install of Windows 8 Pro and while it's noticeably less laggy than Vista it still brings the headache of instability.

People and systems need Windows, I don't think we'll reach a point where we can finally sever the birth cord to it, no matter what at some point there will need to be a windows computer running. Microsoft might see sales drop off a bit but they wont, at least for a long while, need to really worry.

I've been using Chrome OS for over 2 years since google sent me a CR-48. I use it daily to catch up on news, emails, comics, facebook.... It sits on my nightstand is perfect for how I use it. The OS is really nice and easy to use. I would no hesitate to buy one of these devices for my dad, aunt, etc where I have to be "tech support".

In North America, Chromebooks are largely an education (K12) play. The "traditional" OEMs are seeing tremendous market share erosion to iPads in schools - So this provides them with something to sell. The schools struggle with iPads because they're expensive (next to no edu-discounting from Apple), fragile, difficult to manage and are theft targets. It's also difficult to create content (such as writing and essay) on iPad.

If Chromebooks are a hit, it's evidence around how much backwards compatibility is important; or in other words, how it might be unimportant. Windows is full of bugs, which don't get fixed, or have really nasty work arounds, because somebody has a crappy written piece of software that they tell the Windows team that they can't live without. So Windows merrily, goes along shimming, or not fixing existing bugs. Perhaps a successful Chromebook would show the Windows team that the type of customers who refuse t

Microsoft should be scared shitless. I've done ONE test install of Windows 8, HATED it. I've been installing Linux Mint xfce edition (x64) all OVER the place. Love it. Same functionality as XP, more stable, quicker boot, better software selection out of box.

The ONLY problem with mint atm is that skype is not quite as good (go figure). If google steps up the game and gets google hangouts as good or better than skype and/or gotomeeting (the screen sharing in google is totally unusable right now), I don't

Microsoft should be scared shitless. I've done ONE test install of Windows 8, HATED it. I've been installing Linux Mint xfce edition (x64) all OVER the place. Love it. Same functionality as XP, more stable, quicker boot, better software selection out of box.

The ONLY problem with mint atm is that skype is not quite as good (go figure). If google steps up the game and gets google hangouts as good or better than skype and/or gotomeeting (the screen sharing in google is totally unusable right now), I don't see Microsoft as having a chance at all in any market.

At least not amongst the IT educated who see all the other options.

And Mac? How can any shop justify the pricing? LOL

Our sysadmins are all on nagios/android now with anag in particular. Most of us aren't even using linux except when we're doing the actual installs. Everything is android now. And the prices keep dropping.

It's game over. Microsoft and Apple are done, and I'm not going to miss them at all. Corporate scum bags should've been put out of their misery years ago. Especially apple with their drm crap. When I explain to apple users how they've been screwed by apple.... Which is not hard to do, they relook at my jellybean phone and tablet, realize that both of them TOGETHER are cheaper than an iphone, and instantly vow never to buy apple again.

I don't know a single person who has any feelings about Windows 8 other than abject hatred. NOBODY is switching to that here. Even on calls where a client got a new machine, their question is always, "How can I downgrade?" For the majority of them (non-gamers in particular), I convince them to use Mint xfce edition, and they couldn't be happier. Now with Steam growing it's library on Linux? The gamers are next. As soon as Civilization 2 comes to steam, I won't even need my old microXP VM any more!

These are good times for Linux, for open source, for human freedom, and for the tech industry. I for one welcome our new open source overlords.

PS Not to be an unabashed google fanboy. I disable google now everywhere I go (battery chewing spyware), as well as killing all the maps background data processes, etc.. Google is great, but only if you install android fresh and turn off all their spyware.

FLStudio still only runs in Windows. They still have a monopoly on that. They also have gaming.

My larger point is that this is becoming the exception rather than the rule. And I addressed gaming directly. Steam is a huge part of the gaming market, and it's on Linux now, with titles being added almost daily. Then of course, all the nintendo emulators work great in linux...:)

I just picked up a Chromebook yesterday and am fast at work getting Ubuntu running on it. It's a great little machine, fast, light, great battery, cheap as heck. It's perfect for just getting online fast.

These things are going to really slice away at the low cost PC market which in turn will take a real dig at Windows. When I see the market share numbers for where Windows is at I see most of it as just people picking up the cheapest thing they can find to get online. These Chromebooks are perfect for that and undercut the price by a huge amount. This Samsung was $215 from Best Buy. All the Windows 8 machines they had there were several hundred dollars more.

Really? And compared to your average tablet, how does the Celeron fare? The Chromebook's niche is not that of a PC. Hell, it's not even like that of a traditional notebook. Given that, the Celeron processor is more than up to the task.

The dual-core SandyBridge celeron you find in the HP units is significantly faster than any ARM processor currently on the market. Of course, it also draws far more power, since it's a different class of processor. Apples and oranges there.

But does Intel still cripple the power saving features in the mobile Celeron? This is one of the reasons I always stuck with AMD in mobile, Intel was too quick to kill useful power saving features in their mobile chips to try to force an upsell. if you want to kill features like hyperthreading or virtualization fine Intel but killing useful power saving features like advanced Speedstep is just DUMB.

I'd otherwise have agreed with you, but I'm starting to see change. A guy I know who works for the US government (probably the organization you'd expect to leap on board new tech trends *last*) reports his new CIO is aggressively investigating Google products, google hosted email, and so on.

If that's true, there's hope. Face it: Microsoft was a real innovator in the early 90s. Maybe even the late 90s. And for a while there, Microsoft software was useful in ways other software was not.

That age ended long ago, and increasingly Microsoft finds itself struggling to catch up. They have no mojo with the "young" generation, and since Windows/Office has produced no software worth writing home about. Google now has enough brand name recognition even the most easily scared/reticent CIOs can suggest Google products without fear of getting "the blank stare."

Good times for everyone. Bad times for Ballmer (who should've gotten his ass thrown out the Microsoft door - or is it a window - many, many years ago). That guy is sinking the Microsoft ship.

The US government is not a monolith. In the USDA where I currently contract, Google Chrome is banned from installation. There is alternating reticence and enthusiasm from the various agencies I've worked with lately about cloud solutions, so there a patchwork of 'progress' depending on how that's even defined.

Uh, what exactly did Microsoft innovate? As far as I can tell, people who think Microsoft innovated in the 90s only think so because Microsoft's products are the first place they saw some things, not because Microsoft was the first, or even the best, to do them.

Yes, my company laptop uses Windows 7. But I did not pay for it. I use Outlook because it hooks into their email system that combines scheduling and tele-conferencing.

Everything else is open source because I have that choice. My development work is all on Unix.

Microsoft isn't going anywhere

Everyday, I am hearing of more and more people using an iPad or and Andoid tablet as their daily working machine. Sure, they still have that Windows desktop, but many days, it isn't even turned on. How much longer will the wallets of that 'office

If you're making long-term, high-dollar decisions based on what I or anybody else on Slashdot says... well, you'd have to be an idiot to do that. In fact, from what I've seen, all those companies making choices based on what Gartner or a

Seriously, you should try suggesting that a multi-billion dollar, multi-national. Small shops, maybe, but larger corporations? I doubt it.

There's a lot of inertia involved to start moving corporations to something like Open Office, and corporations want to be sure they have support contracts with a vendor who can actually fix the problems -- not someone who can look at the code and submit a patch. They don't want to post on some internet forum, they

I guess it depends what field you are in...or maybe just where you happen to work. The Sysadmins here are all complete 100% windows guys. They couldn't get a job in any other environment. Some of the employees are windows only at work people...but the infrastructure guys are all windows only. It has been this way at the last couple places I have worked. I haven't changed companies in a while, however.

Oh, I have NO idea what the source code looks like. I just know how it behaves. If it were written well, it wouldn't have to reboot it so often nor would it crash on me all the time. Both the Mac's OS and Linux are better choices.

Although, I do have to say, Windows XP was well done. Security was questionable, but over all, from a user perspective, it was well thought out. However, how long ago did XP come out.

I predicted Siri by 12 months (no, seriously, I did), so I feel duly empowered to answer and predict all questions on the HID front.

I love Android, but I don't want it on my desktop.

Not as long as desktops are around, which won't be forever. Prounouncing the death of the desktop now would be premature, but lets face it, 20 years from now, 10 even, people aren't going to be using a mouse, dude. Lets get real.

Is it going to be that "Metro" horror? I doubt it. Applications like Siri will be ubiquitous, they will be more intelligent and there will be an ansi s

Not as long as desktops are around, which won't be forever. Prounouncing the death of the desktop now would be premature, but lets face it, 20 years from now, 10 even, people aren't going to be using a mouse, dude. Lets get real.

They've had the ability to do touch-screen displays for well over 20 years. They even tried to do it in the 1980's. However, they found that it was not practical for a desktop - and produced what got coined as "Gorilla Arm". That's why Touch Screen will never take off on the desktop.

That said, I still think you are right that the desktop won't really be around in 10-20 years except for in some very niche cases. Touch-based systems will replace it, but they won't be desktop's like you think today. They'll

Why would you want Android on the desktop? I love Android, but I don't want it on my desktop.

Nobody would want the CURRENT Android on their laptop. But they'd sure love a consistent and portable environment that works for all their use cases, preserves app store purchases, provides access to all their data, etc., if it could do what they need a desktop OS to do today.

Right now the ChromeOS laptops can take a SIM card. Give it a couple years, and they'll take the whole phone, and the thing will switch into

Not to mention with the ChromeBook all you are doing is trading the openness of X86 for a system that is as locked down as a cellphone. With a Windows laptop i can be booting up in under 10 minutes with any flavor of Linux or BSD that I want, I'm not beholden to ANYBODY to continue support of the machine as its mine and i can run what I want. With ChromeOS you have to 1.-Go into "dev mode", 2.-Wipe the OS completely (no dual boot allowed!), 3.-After all that you can run ONE and ONLY ONE OS, and that is a bootloader hacked version of ubuntu run by just one guy. if he quits hacking Ubuntu bootloaders or doesn't support your ChromeBook? Tough shit, regular Linux and BSd WILL NOT RUN on a ChromeBook.

So while i'm all for breaking up the MSFT monopoly on X86 this is NOT the way to go about it, we are trading one corporation for another that is worse in every single way. With Windows laptops if you don't like the latest from MSFT, or they no longer support your hardware who cares? You have dozens of distros to choose from that will have updated software so your device is still usable. With this you're getting the worst of X86 (shorter battery life, more heat) and the worst of ARM (locked down hardware, little support outside the OEM) with the upsides of neither.

What we need is an open laptop running the latest Android NOT a locked down Internet only OS. There are still a lot of places where free WiFi isn't available and if all the ISPs go to 6 strikes you can kiss free WiFi goodbye anyway so unless these have a SIM card slot and you buy a data plan they are gonna be paperweights quickly enough. Maybe its just me but I want a system i can use offline and on, that I can put whatever OS I want onto, and which isn't gonna be locked down like a cellphone and be a PITA for other OSes to support.

I thought MSFT locking systems down with UEFI was wrong, and its still wrong if a company does it while claiming they "do no evil". So I hope these bomb, maybe they'll give us open Android systems instead.

What we need is an open laptop running the latest Android NOT a locked down Internet only OS

Yes, that's what WE need, but the vast majority of users want a secure machine that only runs signed code, because they REALLY don't want to do system administration, way more so than they care about software choice.

Not to mention with the ChromeBook all you are doing is trading the openness of X86 for a system that is as locked down as a cellphone.

Which is great in some places (e.g., education) and for some people (e.g., very non-technical users).

With a Windows laptop i can be booting up in under 10 minutes with any flavor of Linux or BSD that I want, I'm not beholden to ANYBODY to continue support of the machine as its mine and i can run what I want.

The only person that need an education is YOU friend, why do you think that one guy puts out "ChrUbuntu" anyway? For his health? No its because the ONLY way to run another OS is with a bootloader hack because "dev mode" does NOT give you an open BIOS, its still as locked down as ever. in fact "dev mode" is just that, a way for developers to test their applications on ChromeOS, its NOT made to allow you to install any alternate OSes.

Again I don't give a flying shit WHO locks down the hardware, locked down

Because you don't win against Microsoft by waiting for the merge to be done to get to market. Patience, grasshopper - the OEM's who have signed on for ChromeOS know they'll be hitting the ground running with Android laptops. But now is no time to taint the Android brand with the current status.

Seriously you been asleep. iOS could be made from magic of unicorns tears and nobody would care. Its not its kind of stuck in a time loop from 2007, but the fact is they take profits over Market share which makes them irrelevant.